Rise of Empires: Spain.

Chapter 319 Changes in the House of Lords
Spain's administrative division reform has been carried out vigorously, and the constitution has also been extensively amended. Spain's political system can be said to be changing with each passing day.

The proposal for the recommended electoral system, which was hotly debated in the parliament, finally received 298 votes in favor, 185 votes against and 68 abstentions in the 45-member House of Commons, with a vote rate of over 62%, and was successfully submitted to the House of Lords for review.

The House of Lords passed the bill quickly because it had fewer members and the so-called recommendation election system was also beneficial to it.

On May 1885, 5, the Spanish Parliament once again issued an announcement, announcing that from that day on, a recommendation election system would be implemented in all states and special municipalities in Spain to elect mayors of each state and city in a more appropriate manner.

The proposal passed by parliament seems quite common to the Spanish people. After all, the election of high-ranking officials such as governors has little to do with them.

But in Spanish politics, the so-called recommendation election system still caused a great sensation.

After the implementation of the recommendation election system, the Spanish Parliament's control over the states has also been greatly enhanced. This also means that whichever party can control the Spanish Parliament can control the Spanish cabinet government and the state governments.

Compared to the upper house, the lower house is a mixed bag. Needless to say, Spain's three major parties, the Conservative Party, the Progressive Party and the Liberal Party, all have at least dozens of seats in the lower house, and have a great say in whether a parliamentary proposal is implemented or not.

In addition to these three major parties, there are also some small political parties in Parliament that have passed the review of the House of Lords. Among them is the Workers' Party secretly established by Carlo, whose goal is to gather the power of workers and unite them under the royal power.

The connection between the royal power and the workers may seem absurd to later generations, but in fact, in Spain at that time, the connection between the royal power and the workers was not absurd, and was even quite normal.

As the King of Spain, all Spaniards, regardless of their profession, are Carlo's subjects.

Since they are Carlo's subjects, isn't it normal and reasonable for Carlo to protect the rights of his people as the King of Spain?

Under this idea, the royal power and the workers stood together. The capitalists who undermined the rights of the workers naturally stood on the opposite side of the royal power and the workers.

It was precisely by cleverly taking advantage of this loophole that the Spanish Workers' Party attracted the support of a considerable number of workers while abiding by the Spanish Constitution and supporting the monarchy and Carlo.

Spain at this moment is no longer the underdeveloped country it was a dozen years ago. Spain now has hundreds of thousands of workers, who are definitely a strong political force.

Compared with conservative farmers, workers attach more importance to their own rights and interests, and they are more inclined to use marches and strikes to appeal for their demands.

As long as the power of these workers can be properly utilized, any political party will have a headache facing this special workers' party.

If the issue is not handled properly, it will lead to large-scale workers' strikes and demonstrations across Spain. At that time, no matter what status and level of officials they are, they will be pushed out to take the blame and quell the workers' anger.

It is also because of this that the Workers' Party has developed very smoothly in Spain and has now become the fourth largest party in Spain after the Liberal Party.

For Carlo, the growth of the Workers' Party represents the success of Carlo's layout. With the development of the Workers' Party, Carlo, as the controller behind the Workers' Party, can also reasonably use the powerful political force of workers.

But at the same time, the development of the Workers' Party is also affecting Spain's original three-party system.

The so-called three-party system is that the three largest parties in Spain, the Conservative Party, the Progressive Party and the Liberal Party, take turns in governing, and the non-ruling party supervises the ruling party to ensure the long-term stability of the Spanish political situation.

At present, this approach is relatively successful. The three major parties have a certain number of cabinet members, and they can supervise each other to ensure that no party dominates alone.

With the rise of the Workers' Party, Spain's original three-party ruling system may be undermined. How to deal with the increasing number of political parties in Spain is also a question that needs to be considered.

Of course, there is no rush to deal with issues concerning political parties.

As the political division reform plan progresses, there are many things that Spain needs to change. What Carlo needs to do is to take every aspect into consideration and make Spain go further and higher.

After the administrative division reform, the House of Lords was also involved in changes.

In fact, the composition of the Senate can explain why there are changes in the Senate. The full name of the Spanish Senate is the Royal Senate, which is composed of representatives of the original regions and noble members.

After the regions were transformed into states, the representatives of the regions naturally became state representatives. Because some regions have been merged, the affiliation of these regional representatives will naturally change to a certain extent.

In addition, there will be certain changes in the way representatives of each state are elected and the number of members of the Senate.

However, because such changes only exist in the House of Lords, Carlo can easily carry out the reforms he imagines.

First, the number of members of the House of Lords has been increased from about 100 to 122. Nobles account for 54% of the total number of members of the House of Lords, with a total of 66 members.

The number of representatives from each state is 56. Spain's 14 state-level administrative regions each have 4 seats in the upper house, which is exactly divided into 56 seats.

The proportion of nobles shows Carlo's control over the House of Lords. It is no exaggeration to say that any of Carlo's ideas can be voted through in the House of Lords, which is also Carlo's trump card for himself.

Although the House of Commons has great power, it can elect the Prime Minister, the highest leader of the government, make laws, supervise the government, and so on.

But in fact, the power of the House of Lords is no less than that of the House of Commons, and may even be greater.

The Senate has a political party review committee that can directly declare any political party in Spain legal or illegal. This also means that the power of life and death of all political parties in Spain is in the hands of the Senate, and most of the Spanish parliamentarians are partisan, which shows the influence of the Senate.

In addition, the House of Lords also controls departments with considerable power, such as the Performance Evaluation and Review Bureau and the Election Supervision Committee.

Needless to say, the Performance Evaluation and Audit Bureau can conduct performance evaluations on all Spanish officials and review their previous performance.

As long as you are in the Spanish political arena, you are subject to the control of the Senate's Performance Evaluation and Audit Bureau, and your future and destiny are in the hands of the Senate.

As the name suggests, the Electoral Supervisory Commission is a body specially set up by the upper house to supervise the election of the Prime Minister in Spain, down to the election of mayors in states and cities. All elections are subject to the supervision of the Electoral Supervisory Commission. If the Electoral Supervisory Commission determines that there are election violations, even if the Prime Minister is approved by the majority of the lower house, his position will lose its legitimacy.

These three important institutions are Carlo's trump card for a future falling out with the Spanish Prime Minister. With these three important institutions, even if there is a prime minister who holds great power and does not support the kingship in the future, Carlo does not have to worry about his position being threatened.

In addition, the Senate itself has the power of legislative review and can reject bills passed by the House of Commons. It can be said that the Spanish Senate has a strong control over the House of Commons. Carlo is therefore able to exert his influence on all parliamentary institutions in Spain.

It is also because of this that after the House of Commons' recommended election system was submitted to the House of Lords, the vote in the House of Lords was so quick and the bill was passed in a short time.

After the implementation of the recommendation election system, it becomes more difficult for state governors to be re-elected.

Although they can automatically become candidates for governor, if their political performance does not meet the requirements, they are likely to be disqualified as candidates by the parliament.

In addition, each House of Representatives and the House of Commons will recommend another candidate, resulting in the election of state governors and city mayors becoming a three-way competition.

Even though the governor has good political achievements, the other two candidates have also received the support of the House of Commons and the House of Lords respectively, which is also a significant help.

Of course, the recommendation election system is not all bad.

As long as the governor can establish political achievements, it will be easier for him to be noticed by the parliament and the cabinet government. In this way, the governor will have the opportunity to be appointed as a cabinet minister by the prime minister after completing his term.

After all, there are no high requirements for becoming a cabinet minister. As long as you become a cabinet minister in Spain, you will automatically get a seat in the House of Representatives.

After the administrative division reform, the promotion channels for governors of each state were broadened. At the same time, the cabinet government and parliament also strengthened their control over the state governments.

Although it was not a more direct system of appointment and dismissal of officials, given the situation in Spain at that time, Carlo could still directly appoint and dismiss officials from various states.

The biggest advantage of doing this is that it can prevent officials who do not have much ability from staying in their positions for a long time.

Carlo treated all Spanish officials equally. As long as they were capable, no matter whether they were born noble or not, they had the opportunity to become a high-ranking official in Spain.

But if you are incapable, it is better to step down as soon as possible and let others do the job. Important positions like governors of states must be held by capable officials.

A local governor is very important to the local development. He may bring a poor area to a more developed level, or he may turn a relatively developed and prosperous area into a poor and backward area again.

Now that the cabinet government and parliament have strengthened their control over state governments, it means that the performance appraisal of officials will become very important.

In addition to the attention of Congress to the governors of each state, the agency that pays the most attention to the state governments may be the Performance Review Bureau.

The evaluation of political performance each year will become extremely important to officials, and may even directly affect whether their political careers can continue in the next few years.

If a governor receives excellent performance evaluation, he or she will be able to continue to run for the governorship or be promoted to cabinet minister or other important department.

However, if one receives poor performance evaluations, it will not be easy to move up to the cabinet government or other important departments, or even to be re-elected.

If the Spanish newspapers report the performance appraisal bureau's evaluation of him, it will basically declare the end of an official's political career.

When the public is already familiar with the poor performance evaluations received by this official, no one will support him anymore.

Without the support of the people, it is impossible to be re-elected. Although the people cannot directly influence the election of officials, they can elect the members they like and trust.

If the legislators want to continue to gain the support of the people, they must also consider the opinions of the people. If they support a candidate that the people oppose, or oppose a candidate that the people support, this will reduce the public's trust in them.

The increase in the power of the Performance Evaluation and Review Bureau is certainly good news for Carlo, because it means that Carlo's voice will continue to increase.

In fact, we can see some clues from the political division reform. As the king of Spain, Carlo's control over the regional governments was relatively weak.

What Carlo could influence were Spain's colonies. After all, the colonial governors could be appointed by the king himself.

Although he could not do something as exaggerated as appointing and dismissing colonial governors at will, Carlo had a very high say in the selection of colonial governors.

This also led to Carlo's relatively high control over the Spanish colonies. Previously, Carlo wanted to train the candidates he favored, so he sent them to the colonies to serve as governors, and then transferred them back to Spain to promote their positions and ranks.

Now that Carlo's control over the Spanish state governments has been strengthened, he can train officials he likes more locally.

Especially for the two special cities of Madrid and Barcelona, ​​Carlo's plan for them is to use them as cradles for training key officials.

In the future, any official that Carlo favors will serve as mayor of the two special cities for a period of time.

If they can achieve some outstanding political achievements, Carlo will consider promoting them and letting them serve in the cabinet or other important departments.

If an official fails to achieve any results in either of the two positions, especially as mayor, it can be basically confirmed that he or she does not have much ability.

Although Madrid and Barcelona have a small population and area, as the two most important cities in Spain, they receive a lot of political resources.

With the help of this tilt of political resources, as long as one has a certain level of ability, one can successfully take off with the help of this force.

Those that cannot fly prove that they do not have much ability. They cannot rely entirely on the support of the cabinet government for development, right?
If we rely entirely on the support of the cabinet government, then what are the governors and mayors of each state doing?
(End of this chapter)